- Artist
- John Singer Sargent
- Year
- 1885-1886
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
John Singer Sargent painted Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose over two successive summers in the garden of a house at Broadway in the Cotswolds. It shows two small girls in white dresses lighting paper lanterns among tall lilies and rose bushes as the evening light fades. The title echoes the refrain of a popular song of the day, and the painting’s evocation of a child’s twilight world, painted almost entirely out of doors, made it an immediate and lasting favorite.